Open letter to Lance: THANK YOU SO MUCH

It has been a while since I blogged and I was starting one on the LiveSTRONG Challenge in Austin when I heard you stepped down as chairman of the board and now as board member. To me this is very sad news. No matter what people may believe you did or did not do during your cycling career, for me this is getting out of hand. I want to start off with saying I’m still not convinced you doped. The entire process of getting others to testify on hear say and speculations by promising them they will be punished lightly sits totally wrong with me. It feels like a witch-hunt, not based on solid evidence. I have been called stupid, brainwashed and star struck for my opinion but I don’t care. I’m simply not convinced and think you would never put anything in your body that harms you after what you have been through. And I have the feeling you wouldn’t enjoy the win if you didn’t beat everyone fair and square. But now you are "forced" to step away from your true legacy: LiveSTRONG. Of course I understand LiveSTRONG is bigger than you and I admire you for putting the Foundation before your own interests and distancing you from it now. BUT YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE TOO. And that’s why I write you this letter, because I am so very grateful for all you did and still do. As I have told people over and over again: you are the one that literally kept me walking. I got hurt in a hit and run accident in the year you won your first Tour de France and seeing you do that gave me the strength not to give up and work hard enough to not be confined to a wheelchair but walk with crutches. You inspired me and pulled me through the worst time of my life. THANK YOU !!! Five years ago, after I became a LiveSTRONG Leader, your example got me back on the bike and training for my first LiveSTRONG Challenge. If things got bad I remembered your “pain is temporarily, quitting lasts for ever” and that kept me going! THANK YOU !!! I have been able to participate in three Challenges after that. Going to Austin and raise enough funds to be invited to the Fundraising Appreciation dinner has been the highlight of these years. Hearing you and Doug speak there has made an everlasting impression on me. My goal has been and will be to raise enough Funds to be invited to the Ride for the Roses weekend, not only because that will give LiveSTRONG the opportunity to do more of their amazing work for the 28 million affected by this disease, but it will finally give me the opportunity to meet you face to face, shake your hand and say THANK YOU in person. THANK YOU for keeping me on my feet; THANK YOU for getting me back on that bike; THANK YOU for founding LiveSTRONG before knowing your own fate, thus helping millions of others; THANK YOU for fighting for those living with cancer for 15 straight years; THANK YOU for your vision which made LiveSTRONG into a one of a kind cancer charity; Thank YOU for all the time and effort you put into LiveSTRONG; THANK YOU for letting me be a LiveSTRONG Leader which allows me to give back a little and honor those affected by this disease; THANK YOU for letting me be a Team LiveSTRONG mentor, so I can help participants all over the world meet their goal and experience the amazing event a LiveSTRONG Challenge is; THANK YOU from all the survivors in the LiveSTRONG spinning class I teach each week for the hope and inspiration you still give them; THANK YOU from all the survivors in the hospitals I go to each week to do volunteer work for LiveSTRONG which gives me the opportunity to tell them about the amazing Foundation you founded. So as soon as I can register for next years Challenge I will and I will work even harder to make that Ride for the Roses weekend. I hope the world has come to its senses by then and you will be back where you belong, with the LiveSTRONG Foundation. And maybe my wish will come true and I will be able to simply say THANK YOU in person.

Resilience, optimism and positive look on life

It has been a while since I my last blog. As you know I hurt my bad leg pretty badly during the Austin Challenge. Once I got home I saw my own doctor and it became obviously that the damage to my knee was healing well but the ankle needed surgery. When it became clear that surgery didn’t do the trick ( I couldn’t put my foot down straight) another one was scheduled and the position of the foot was corrected by “rerouting” the muscle.

A few check-ups later the pain hadn’t really gone down and my doctor started to fear it never might. It was a known side-effect that hardly ever occurs ( both of us should have know this would be the case for me).

I wasn’t too happy about that but starting November 2nd I finally got rid of the emergency anti-rejection medication that put all 30 kg that I lost back on and I was allowed to start a very careful designed training schedule again. I was allowed to get back on the bike and start preparations for this years Challenge, a great feeling.

Just before Christmas LiveSTRONG did me the tremendous honor of making me a Team LiveSTRONG mentor for all foreign participants, something that made me very happy and even more motivated to be able to ride a decent Challenge this year.

But as time progressed it became more and more clear that the additional pain the ankle generated was there to stay. When I found out I kind of felt sorry for myself: why on earth do these things keep happening to me? Teaching LiveSTRONG spinning class for survivors was as always a humbling experience and I never lost track of the fact that the 28 million had much more reason to complain. But I was also surrounded by lots of other people who’s life seemed to have no problems at all and my dear and wise friend Jody always tells me my struggle is just as real, only different.

Then came last Friday and I was visited by a friend who’s life hit a rough spot an couple of months ago. Although it wasn’t touched by disease, it sure wasn’t fun.

As we sat down and started talking my friend showed his usual resilience, optimism and positive look on life, despite what was going on. As the conversation went on I learned his life had been so much rougher than I ever imagined and still there was my optimistic, positive friend showing so much resilience it left me in awe. Right there and then I (figuratively) kicked myself and decided no more feeling sorry for myself. Too bad “hardly ever occurring side-effects” always happen to me, to bad I gained the weight (I’ll loose it again), too bad I didn’t get to ride the distance I wanted to at the Challenge (I will make up for it this year) and too bad the pain got a bit worse. Whenever things get rough again I will think about my friend, giving me yet another example how people, even outside my LiveSTRONG family, do LiveSTRONG!